Box me In
by UnstableIntention
Summary: When the worst happens and Stiles' father is killed in the line of duty, he's shipped across the country to live with his uncle in a Boston boxing-gym. It's the first time the Spark comes in contact with a real-life werewolf pack, but that doesn't mean he's happy about it.
1. Chapter 1

"Genim. Genim. Wake up, dziecko."

Still half asleep, Stiles sneered, squirmed underneath his seatbelt before peeling his cheek off the glass of the passenger's side window.

"Not a kid," he muttered irritably, pushing himself upright in his seat. "And don't call me that."

Twisting in his seat, he stretched as best he could, rolling the disks in his spine and dropping his shoulders to pop his collarbones. He'd never realized how uncomfortable his beloved Jeep could be but now, having spent nearly 46 hours in the thing over the last three days, he almost cursed himself for keeping it.

Almost.

But now it was all he had, it and the dozen or so boxes and duffel bags crammed into the back. They were mostly filled with clothes, some school stuff, a gaming console, but not much more. Everything else, everything important…

He'd left all that behind - over three thousand miles behind - either up for auction in the estate sale or buried in two side-by-side plots at the back of Beacon Hills Cemetery.

A shiver rolled down Stiles' spine and he reached out to turn on the heat, fiddling with the sliding vents. His Uncle Ulryk must have turned it off again while he was sleeping. He didn't call him on it - he'd been cold ever since he'd gotten the call, the phone call that he thought he might've spent his whole life dreading, waiting for.

10-00, Officer Down.

He'd felt like he was drowning that night.

Drowning, forced into an ice water bath that rushed into his lungs and puddled around his heart, frigid, pounding, sharp little shards of frost collecting all along his insides. He'd tried for his spark, reached for it again and again while he waited in the hospital lobby, while he stood graveside through the service, while he silently packed the things that he didn't care about anymore…

He couldn't find it.

He'd managed to slip away from Ulryk before they left, crossed town and cornered his mentor Deaton in the back of his veterinary clinic. Ever stoic, droning on and on about the Balance, he'd refused to give Stiles even the smallest reassurance, only offering emotionless condolences on his loss and giving him the name and phone number of an associate near Boston.

Had Stiles been in full control of himself he might have burned the clinic to the ground in that moment. He'd never cared for the codicil that Deaton followed, his refusal to involve himself until things were at their most dire. In truth he thought he might hate the man in spite of their relationship, all the lessons and guidance and horrible experience between them. In the end he'd realized that he was merely a tool to be used by the older man, and having shut Beacon Hills' Nemeton down for good only the year before, Stiles was really of no more use to him anymore. His loss, _both_ his losses, were of no more consequence to his tutor than a passing summer storm.

Blinking out of his musings, Stiles could feel the cold building up in the pit of his stomach, all flat disappointment and bitter want of intent, and he scrubbed his hands through his hair in an attempt to shake the dark thoughts lingering at the back of his mind. His father's death had brought about a drastic change in him - where he was once goofy, spastic, cheerful, and sarcastic, soldiering on with a smile even in the face of all his pain, in the last three weeks he'd become withdrawn and blank-faced, locking away all his pain and anger as best he could as he overcompensated for the grief, sorrow, and guilt that threatened to crush him into nothing.

"Are we there yet?" he muttered acidly.

He didn't particularly care of course, but he needed the distraction.

"Soon," Ulryk answered, weaving carefully through the city traffic.

Stiles watched the street through the rhythmic swish of the wipers, the sky an iron grey as rain poured down around them, making the car feel like a bubble of heat moving down a long, cold tunnel. Grey, grey, everything around him, all grey. Boston was a mess of glass and concrete and cars, short, heavy buildings and people dashing around, so much faster than the town he'd grown up in. Only seventeen, Stiles had known he'd be placed in the care of a guardian after his father's death, but he hadn't expected his mother's brother, a man he hadn't seen since late childhood, to step forward and place claim on him.

It had briefly occurred to him that he should be angry about that.

Angry, that he was expected to pack up his childhood home only days after planning a funeral alone, to sell the coffee table with the L-shaped scratch and the bookcase with the lopsided shelves. Angry, that he was expected to leave his school and his town, everything he knew, to move to the opposite end of the country with someone he didn't. But without his spark all the heat seemed to have fled his body, even the surging burn of righteous ire.

Nothing.

The only thing he could summon now was a dull, heavy sort of hatred for the world, and everything and everyone in it.

It was exhausting.

Of course it didn't help that he wasn't sleeping - the thirty minutes or so he'd spent dozing in a cramped twist against the door was probably all he'd get for the day. There would be no jet-lagged collapse in his future.

Probably for the best anyway; Ulryk claimed to have a two bedroom loft but for now there was only one bed. He'd promised to have furniture delivered over the weekend, whatever Stiles wanted, and though it was obvious he was reaching out, trying to make this transition as easy as possible for his orphaned nephew, it wasn't really helping. In all honesty, a night stranded on the island that would be a lumpy sofa felt more right to him than anything else.

"Hungry dziecko?" Ulryk asked, and this time Stiles ignored the Polish ' _kid_.'

He'd already come to accept the fact that his uncle was far more in touch with his roots than either Stiles or his mother had been. Strange then - that he made no mention of the family Spark, gave no indication that he was aware of it at all. When Stiles had packed up all his druid crap, all his books and notes and ingredients, all the parts and pieces he'd collected over the years, locking them into a heavy, leather-bound footlocker, the man hadn't asked after it at all, just lifted it up into his arms and carried it down to Stiles' jeep. He didn't question what was inside, why he wanted it, didn't comment on his mother's name carved deep into the lid in intricate, curving letters…

"No," Stiles intoned coldly, flatly, and he could feel the questioning glance that was flicked his way but his uncle didn't chastise him, even though he'd done nothing but pick at the fast food they'd both been living on for the past few days.

"Ok then."

Five more minutes passed in silence, only the muted sounds of rain and traffic fighting their way into the car. Stiles felt a restlessness beginning to build in his legs and his fingertips, much like the static charge of his spark flaring up but different, and he knew that he'd been in the car too long. If he still had his spark he thought it might be leaping all over the place right now, eager, hungry, too-long contained. He was half a breath away from suffering the chill of a rolled-down window just for a shock of fresh air when Ulryk hit the blinker, downshifting with a bark and grind of gears and pulling into a fenced-in lot at the back of a tall brick building, grungy and dark and swallowing up the entire corner lot of the block they'd circled in the downpour.

"Where are we?" he asked, his voice low and wary as he unclicked his belt and leaned forward to peer up through the rain and the growing dark at the side of the building, his hand already on the door, all his instincts preparing him to battle or bolt.

There was something here, something that hung heavily in the air like charcoal smoke, and it was so sharp and choking and electric that he could feel it even inside the protected confines of the jeep.

Something he knew but didn't know, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Home," Ulryk answered simply, and Stiles fought not to flinch.

' _Yours_ ,' he thought. ' _Not mine_.'

"This is a _gym_ ," he said out loud, a flat, unyielding accusation.

"Of course." Ulryk cocked an eyebrow in his direction, evidently just as confused as Stiles. "I always own gym."

"Well, yeah," Stiles conceded.

He knew that. He'd _known_ that. There was more than one hazy memory of private boxing lessons still kicking around in the far, hazy corners of his brain, from a time long past before his uncle had walked out of his life like so many others had.

"I just… didn't know you _lived_ in one," he muttered, second-hand bitterness tainting his words. He didn't really care where he lived anymore.

"Above," Ulryk chuckled gruffly. Reaching over, he curled one strong hand around the back of Stiles' neck and squeezed, rocking him roughly back and forth before letting go and stepping out of the car.

For a minute Stiles just glared at him through the window - a short, stocky man with dark blonde hair just beginning to go grey at the temples. His skin was weathered and there were laugh lines at the corners of his clear blue eyes; the face of a man who was cheerful and honest, but who would be both stern and fair when called upon. He was built like a brick wall, years spent in the Marine Corps and then the boxing ring making him thick and solid. In many ways he reminded Stiles painfully of his mother, in the line of his chin and his thick, Polish words, and the young man wondered whether he would come to love or hate his uncle for that.

Sighing, Stiles pulled his hood up over his head and stepped out into the rain, leaning into the backseat to grab his pillow. He'd gone on last minute trips with Deaton before and he'd learned how to do it right. No one ever wanted to lug a heavy duffel in after a day of driving, to dig through all their suitcases for pajamas. Stuffing a pair of sweats and a toothbrush into his pillowcase was a hell of a lot easier - everything else could wait. Rounding the front of the Jeep, he caught the keys that Ulryk tossed him and locked up before following his uncle through the rain towards a dented metal door at the back of the door, near the gate of the lot that opened out onto the street.

"Is back hallway to gym," Ulryk said, his low voice booming as it echoed round the dimly lit alcove next to a stairwell. Peering down the wide hall, Stiles could see a single door on the left side and a long glass window after it, opening out into wide, empty blackness. "I have office, and second floor is…"

"The catwalk," Stiles supplied absently, still staring into the black.

It had been a long time since he'd been in a gym - not since he was little. He'd loved the sporadic boxing lessons as a child, had taken classes in martial arts for many years - most of them failed attempts at controlling his frenetic energy and his hyperactive tics, at learning his body and searching for ways to make his long, gangly limbs work. Having a father who was in law enforcement and a mother who was a spark meant that he got more self-defense lessons than he could count, learned more ways to protect himself than he could name in front of normal people.

But then his mom had died and he'd inherited her spark alongside his own, and the fumbled transfer had supercharged the damned ghost of a tree out in the Beacon Hills preserve. After that he got so much exercise running for his life that he didn't think he'd ever need to set foot in a gym again.

Still, he remembered. Remembered the smell of the locker rooms and the chalk, the way it felt to pummel your fists into a bag or to have the air driven out of your lungs as you were flipped onto your back onto the mats.

Until that moment he hadn't realized he'd missed it.

Stiles shook his head, blinked as he broke from half a dozen memories he wasn't sure he wanted. He was already halfway up the stairwell, trudging along at Ulryk's heels as his uncle took the steps as spryly as a man half his age.

"Third floor is loft," he rumbled, glancing at Stiles over his shoulder as they came to the top landing, another dented metal door standing silently, almost ominously. Pulling a black, leather-tab keyring from his jacket pocket, he jangled through the keys and turned the lock, swinging the door open. "I have key made for you," he said with a smile, stepping inside easily and flipping a light switch.

Stiles didn't respond, just crossed the threshold slowly, reached out to taste the atmosphere as he got a look around from beneath the edge of his hood.

The loft was large and open, bright somehow despite the heavy gloom that showed through the large paned-glass windows. The floors were made of shiny, blonde wood and the inner wall was light-colored, exposed brick. The ceiling was all open beams and metal, riveting visible even though they were much higher than regular ceilings, long, shaded lights hanging down and glinting off of the gleaming, stainless-steel kitchen to his left.

Edging carefully past his uncle, he stepped further into the apartment, towards the short table that apparently served as a dining area and some sort of office. Ulryk clearly was no neat-freak - there were books and papers strewn a bit haphazardly across its surface, but it gave the place a homey, lived-in feel where the industrialized surface of the loft might've robbed it of any intimacy. Running his finger lightly around the rim of an empty coffee mug at the edge of the table, Stiles swallowed down an acidic lurch of his stomach at the thought.

Behind him Ulryk had hung his coat in a handy closet, placed his wallet in a decorative bowl on the little runner-table just inside the door. Fishing inside it a moment, he picked something out and held it out to Stiles, holding his gaze calmly until he moved forward to take it. It was the key he'd promised, square and silver, and another, larger, heavier, and made of what he thought might be brass.

"One to loft, one to gym," Ulryk explained. "Your home now, Stiles."

Stiles ground his teeth together, unwilling to snarl the hateful words that came unbidden to the front of his mind. His uncle meant well, wanted him to feel comfortable, safe. Welcome. It wasn't his fault that Stiles _couldn't_ feel those things. So instead of talking, instead of denying or lying, he just nodded and jammed the keys deep into the pocket of his jeans.

Ulryk seemed to understand this, and offered him a sage nod in return.

"Is late," he said. "You sleep. Tomorrow, I show you room, show you gym."

"Fine," Stiles replied dully.

He wouldn't sleep, so it didn't matter.

Ulryk nodded again and gestured with one hand, and Stiles, bone-weary and exhausted, followed without hesitation. Rounding the brick wall he entered a large, neat living room, a comfortable-looking leather couch and two matching armchairs grouped around a charcoal colored rug and glass coffee table dominating the space. There was a flat screen on the opposite wall between two more windows, an entertainment center below it full of DVD's, and along either wall large, built-in bookcases painted white.

Digging out his sweats and his t-shirt, Stiles dropped his pillow onto the couch, peeling out of his hoody with a shiver. The apartment was just a little bit cool, and he wondered if he would be able to find the thermostat when Ulryk wasn't looking.

"We get you bed tomorrow, dziecko," the man said quietly, moving in close to Stiles' side so quietly he jumped. Reaching out, he pulled his nephew into a tight bear-hug, making no never-mind about the fact that he was perhaps three inches shorter than Stiles was.

"It's fine," he muttered, supremely uncomfortable but making no move to break away. Instead, he focused on keeping himself together, keeping himself from shattering in the man's grip the way he hadn't wanted to since he'd broken in Tara's an hour after he'd reached the hospital. The deputy had held him for hours that night, but it hadn't been nearly long enough.

"It will be," Ulryk said in reply, and it felt strangely like a promise. Releasing Stiles at last, he took a step back and pointed. "Remote is on table," he gestured, and Stiles wondered if he actually _did_ know that he was having trouble sleeping. "Light is there. Bathroom, first door down hallway."

"Right."

Ulryk grunted, nodded.

"Good then. Dobranoc, dziecko."

"Good night."

Stiles watched silently while the man disappeared down the hallway, turning lights as he went, leaving him in the low, warm glow of a lamp that stood between the couch and one of the chairs. Changing quickly out of his stale, travel-creased clothes, Stiles paused in the dim light, ran his fingers lightly over the tattoos he kept carefully hidden under long sleeves. Normally they would flare with power beneath his touch, make him feel protected, at home. Tonight they stayed silent, and it sent another chill down his spine. Tugging his hoodie back on, he wrapped his arms around his ribs tightly and dropped bonelessly onto the couch, sighing as he sank into the airy cushions.

Just as comfortable as it looked.

Leaning forward, he grabbed the remote from the coffee table and clicked on the television, turning the volume low and flicking through to an old Mets game.

It was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles opened his eyes the next morning to the smell of coffee, good, black coffee, and the low hum of Saturday morning cartoons. He'd been tuned in to Adultswim before drifting off into some sort of strange dream-state, half awake and half hazy, like being underwater. Blinking groggily, he waited for his parents' faces to fade from his mind before pulling himself up and out of it, scrubbing his hands over his eyes to help push away the image.

Rolling to his feet, he stretched and twisted from side to side, popped the kinks from his back before grabbing his toothbrush and meandering round the brick wall towards the bathroom. He caught sight of his uncle on the way, standing over the stove where something popped and hissed, and the man raised a hand to wave a spatula in greeting. Stiles ignored him, stepped into the bathroom to relieve himself and splash icy water over his face.

It was a decent sized bathroom, big enough that he wouldn't feel too cramped sharing, and it was cleaner than he'd expected it to be. Toilet, sink, cabinets, a glass shower stall in the corner, but more importantly the kind of mirror over the sink that opened up into a medicine cabinet. Stiles poked around a minute, not even really sure why - he didn't think he cared enough to snoop through Ulryk's stuff. There was an old prescription or two, an antibiotic and a few high-quality painkillers, some generic muscle cream, but Stiles had never abused anything harder than his Adderall when it came to pills and he didn't think that he was ready to start, even if a sleeping pill might be nice every once in a while.

Still, there were a few things in there that he could use - talc for one, hydrogen peroxide, bandages, and rubbing alcohol forming the base of a good first aid kit.

Frowning, Stiles closed the mirror again and stared at his reflection.

He didn't know if he wanted to need a first aid kit anymore or not, didn't know if he wanted to live that way. Didn't know if he wanted to go back to treating injuries that he couldn't check into a hospital and hiding bloody clothes at the bottom of the hamper.

Didn't know anything anymore.

Not if he wanted to contact the Druid whose name Deaton had given him, or if he wanted to be involved in that world at all.

Away from the Nemeton, away from Beacon Hills, he had a chance at a normal life, but it wouldn't be one he knew. He knew fighting, he knew battle. Knew what it was like to run for his very life. It was a part of himself that he wasn't sure he could give up, even if he wanted to.

But Stiles decided that that was all far too deep to be puzzling over this early in the morning, far too deep to even consider before coffee, and the smell of it out in the kitchen had set his body to craving it, so he dried his hands and left the bathroom with the feeling of a man turning to face the rest of his life.

Ulryk hadn't waited for him, and somehow that made him feel better. His uncle was sitting at the table where he'd cleared a place just large enough for a plate and a mug, tucking in to a heap of fried eggs and bacon. Just the thought of all that fat and cholesterol had Stiles' chest feeling tight, and he opened his mouth to chastise the man purely out of habit when he froze with his hand on the fridge door.

The last thing he'd said to his father before he'd headed out for his shift that night had been the threat of a week's worth of salad and sprouts if he caught him with another flame-broiled Whopper wrapper crumpled in the pocket of his jacket.

He didn't think he'd ever be able to eat Burger King again.

And his dad...

His dad…

Oh hell, keep it together Stiles…

Knuckles white as he gripped the door handle, Stiles clenched his eyes shut and counted his breaths, falling into the 5-7 pattern he knew so well as he fought the panic attack threatening to swallow him.

His dad was gone, dead and gone, his dad…

Swallowing hard, Stiles clamped his free hand over the inside of his forearm, irritated by the barrier of his sleeve as he sought the familiar comfort that the tattoo there had always afforded him. It was a Swallow, small and intricately inked just below his elbow, the delicate little bird a representation of the mother he had lost. He'd gotten it on his fifteenth birthday from a parlor Deaton had recommended, one that catered to the more-than-human, pumping spells through his own veins all the while the needle had bitten in to his skin. The artist, Chuy, had been immeasurably helpful, pointing out ways to change the wording of a charm or the edges of the design so that it would function better, forcing his own wards in alongside the ink - for an extra fee of course.

In the end the sweet little creature, wings lifted in flight, turned out exactly as he'd hoped, did everything he intended it to. It let him feel home and love and family, boosted his spark when he needed it to and reminded him of his mom the rest of the time.

He needed that feeling, now more than ever, but something cold and dark was standing between him and that light, and he was pretty sure that he already knew what it was.

His dad, the other half of his parental unit, the man who'd raised him and shown him exactly what he wanted to be - a good man who did what he had to and protected what he loved - was gone, dead just like his mother was, and it left him feeling entirely lost and untethered for the first time in a long time. Without his parents and without a pack, Stiles was alone. Deaton had taught him about wolves, about their anchors, and about the way that Stiles' own nature would be drawn to them, would need them. How in the end they would become a conduit, become like his own anchor. He didn't know it to be true, had never had a pack, and the only thing that had kept him centered in all his years in Beacon Hills, all those years without a wolf in sight, had been his father.

But now his father was gone, closed off to him, forever unreachable.

He needed a new tattoo, and soon.

"Dziecko?"

" 'M all right," he mumbled, blinking out of his stupor and pulling the fridge open. Despite Ulryk's artery-clogging breakfast the fridge was clean and well organized; there were lots of fruits and greens and he could see a few packages of lean proteins as well.

It was enough that he could breathe.

"Just didn't sleep well," he added when Ulryk cast him a disbelieving glance, pulling a carton of orange juice from the fridge.

Poking through the cupboards until he found a glass and a mug, he poured himself juice and coffee, taking a swig of the rich, bitter brew and savoring the heat as it made its way down his throat and into the pit of his belly. There was a loaf of bread on the counter so he slotted two slices into the little toaster beneath a cabinet, grabbed a banana from a porcelain fruit bowl.

"Is good store two blocks from here," Ulryk rumbled, interrupting the brief quiet as he stood smoothly from his chair to place his dishes in the sink. "We go, you pick new bed. I ask them deliver today, so tonight you sleep better."

Stiles doubted that.

"Can we just order stuff online?" he sighed, scrubbing a hand down over his face. "I don't… really feel like going out right now."

And that much was true - he felt a little cold, a little jittery, and it had nothing to do with the mug of coffee he'd just finished. A panic attack was still a real possibility in his near future, and quite frankly, he just didn't want to have to interact with anyone. God, he felt like he'd been doing that since the day his dad had died, juggling decisions and condolences from every which way and all he really wanted was one day to lock himself in his room and sob where no one could see or touch him.

"Is page on computer, I think," Ulryk said, pouring his second mug of coffee and using it to gesture towards the laptop sitting open and dormant on the table atop a stack of paperwork. "You look and find what you like, we order and have delivered."

"Stellar," Stiles muttered, low and mostly to himself.

As sensitive and irritable towards his uncle as he was right now, he didn't want to be cruel to the man.

Snatching his toast as it popped from the slots, Stiles juggled the hot pieces, buttered them quickly before grabbing what was left of the bacon and crossing to sit at the place that Ulryk had vacated. He could feel his uncle's eyes on him, could feel the concern he didn't speak at Stiles' unwillingness to go out in public, and it made him feel even more chilled and shivery than he has before, but he couldn't find it in himself to explain or reassure the man.

He'd pretty much reached the point of every man for himself, and Stiles was good at saving his own ass.

Stuffing his breakfast into his mouth one piece at a time without really tasting any of it, he Googled the name of the store that Ulryk tossed in his direction and tabbed through to the section for bedroom furniture. He wasn't really interested in the process, was distracted and shaky, so in the end he just queued up the first bedroom set he saw that was gender neutral - something called the Sonoma in a pale blonde with brass fixtures. One dresser, two side tables, and a platform bed with a shelved headboard and drawers beneath. There was an optional bench shelf as well but he traded it out for a small desk in a matching style that would serve well enough for homework and other… endeavors.

He didn't check the price as he clicked through to checkout - his father had had a very good life insurance policy, and that along with the money from the state was sitting fat and miserable in his bank account. He had money from his mom's death too but all of that had gone into a savings fund for college, and while it hurt to think of using any of it, hurt to think about where it came from, it was a relief to know that he wouldn't be a financial burden on his uncle.

"In stock," he said for Ulryk's benefit as he punched in his credit card number. "They'll deliver by two. "Must be slow on Saturday huh?"

Ulryk hummed, handed him a scrap of paper with the gym's address scrawled in a dark, heavy hand. "They are small store. And I tell them you're coming."

"Right. When are you opening back up anyway?" he asked. He didn't care, he just wanted to know how long it would be until he was finally left alone.

"Tomorrow," Ulryk answered, taking Stiles dishes and starting up the dishwasher. "Gym is open all week, except Tuesday, Wednesday."

"Slow days?" he asked.

"Slow days."

Closing the laptop, Stiles pushed back from the table and grabbed his keys from the runner near the door where he'd stashed them last night, back in the bowl right alongside his uncle's.

"I'm gonna bring some stuff up," he muttered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder as he pulled his hood up over his face. He could still hear the rain against the big, glass windows, practically feel the cold of the overcast day.

"You want help dziecko?" his uncle asked as he headed for the door, and Stiles' chest squeezed.

It wasn't meant to be a loaded question, he knew that, but it still felt heavy and unwieldy as it tottered precariously on his shoulders. Pulling the door open, he stepped into the dimness of the stairwell and whispered his pained answer.

"No."


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. Stiles pushed himself, trip after trip, hauling his things silently up the dim stairwell until the Jeep was empty and the living room was cluttered, his entire life reduced to clutter all stacked against the bookcases. Stubbornly, he refused any help from his uncle, who was smart enough not to offer a second time but who hovered around for hours, watching him with silent, judgmental eyes.

A furniture van arrived around one-thirty, two middle-aged men only a little younger than Ulryk and clearly twins dropping out of it unhindered by the rain that had held over from the night before. They had greeted his uncle like old friends, and he'd introduced Stiles like he was proud of him, and it had been uncomfortable and awkward and anxiety-provoking for him but none of the three of them seemed to notice. They clapped each other on the back, traded brief, career-centered gossip, and then it was all business, unloading huge, flat, cardboard boxes all battered and filthy at the corners as should be expected. Stiles insisted on shoving a few of them up the stairs himself and they must've seen something in him like restless need because they let him do what he wanted, not even bothering with speeches about how he wasn't exactly covered by the delivery service's insurance.

Once they'd gotten all the boxes into the empty space that would soon become his room, Stiles had thanked them flatly and then pointedly shut the door, closed himself up inside. He'd already found Ulryk's tool box, sparse as it was, and for the next three and a half hours, he set to slicing open and breaking down the boxes, slotting together the joints of his new furniture until he had finally gotten it all free-standing and shoved into a satisfactory formation – all without the help of his uncle. Where he'd allowed Stiles a comfortable amount of space before, he'd continuously poked his head in to check on his progress throughout the afternoon, until Stiles was ready to snap with it. He seemed to have gotten the message when his nephew refused dinner, instead insisting that he was going to crash early on his newly acquire mattress.

He hadn't slept.

For a time he'd stood blanky in the center of the moderately sized room, perspiration beading on his forehead and something like detached awe sitting heavy in his chest. It felt like years since he'd been warm enough to sweat, yet even then, with the neck of his t-shirt stained and sticking to him and his hair damp, there has still been a crackling chill of frost at his core.

That was ok.

He'd needed it, with what he'd done next.

Mourning his father was painful, violently so. The night passed in a haze of sharp, ripping agony, like being clawed and slashed and chewed until he'd collapsed on his side in the fetal position, skin sheened with sour fear-sweat, streaked with blood where he'd knelt on crushed stone and pricked his fingers with a steel pin, feeding droplets onto mirrored glass where heather and cherry blossom smoldered.

It wasn't a trade, not one type of pain for another, but it helped a little, eased a tiny bit of the ache around his heart even as tears streamed down his face and wracking, full-bodied sobs got caught behind his teeth. It didn't end the hurt – that would always stay with him, and that was only right – but by the time the sun came creeping through the window the next morning he was at least able to function again.

Kind of anyway.

Dragging himself to his hands and knees, and then to his feet, he wobbled and wavered, dehydrated and hungry and shaky with nerves, but hey, he was upright.

A bloody freaking mess, but upright.

Subconsciously deciding that he didn't care whether or not Ulryk caught him stumbling across the hall looking like the devil's dog's dinner, he managed to get himself into the bathroom without encountering anyone along the way. Nauseas, with a migraine threatening at the base of his skull, he spent a few minutes crouched on the tile, bowing to the porcelain god before he got himself centered again, settled enough to stand and climb into the shower stall. Ice water poured down and set him to shivering but damn if it didn't feel good, and he scrubbed himself till he was pink and raw before getting out again.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he swung through the living room to grab a box marked 'clothes' and locked himself into his room again, shoving the window open to air the place out before getting dressed again. Black skinny jeans, Chucks, a white t-shirt, and the bone-handled pocket knife he always carried and had felt naked without these last three of four days with Ulryk. Had seemed a little rude before, but he was all moved in now, welcomed home, into the family.

Better to show the man what he'd gotten himself into right off the bat than to lull him into a false sense of security before springing the whole mess on him.

Speaking of bat...

Back in the living room, Stiles paused, listened intently and tried to feel around with his spark, which was still faint and nearly absent all together, but it seemed that Ulryk had already exited the apartment, no doubt already down in the gym, getting in an early morning work-out before opening up again.

Good, fine.

Gave Stiles the space he needed, the isolation he craved.

He'd moved a lot of his things in the night before out of necessity – bed linens, his mother's trunk - but all the rest was still waiting silently for him, staring at him accusingly, so he spent the morning dragging it down the hallway and getting it stashed away. Clothes got folded into drawers or hung in the closet, school stuff got unloaded into the desk, books and research filed onto shelves. His gaming system got plugged into the tv his uncle had mounted on one wall, and everything else, the bits and pieces, the magic, all went where it was supposed to – that was to say, wherever it demanded to be put. All that stuff seemed to have a will of it's own, ended up wherever it felt most right, most natural for it to be.

His rowan-wood baseball bat went under the edge of the bed, his trunk at the foot of it, his fletching kit on the desk for building his little charms. The windowsill was wide and sunny, perfect for his plant-pots, dormant now but soon to flower, and chunks of quartz and natural stone were scattered around like the last hidden, clinging remnants of a glitter bomb.

He felt a little more settled when things were right, when they were where they... not belonged, they didn't belong here yet, but where they should be, at least for now.

He must've been a little harsher in his rejection of his uncle's company the day before because the man didn't show up for lunch. When he shuffled out to the kitchen around two he was surprised to realize that he expected to see the man there, gulping raw eggs from a glass or eating a barely-seared steak as he stood over the counter. He didn't just own the gym, Stiles knew – he was also a trainer, a coach, and apparently led some kind of team that actually competed pretty regularly and did fairly well. No doubt he got his own workouts in too, so he was a little unnerved that his uncle never reappeared to protein-pack throughout the day.

He hadn't meant to displace the guy from his own home, never wanted to be in the way. It was unsettling for him, and at the same time came as a a huge relief – he didn't think he could hold a conversation right now if he had to. Strange, since the self-imposed silence went so much against his nature. He liked to talk, babbled often, but he knew it to be a holdover from the mourning rituals, the odd, unfamiliar shyness of his spark and the strange, disconcerting tingles that had started to emanate from below, distracting him with their insistence. They concerned him with their foreign, humming comfort, spurred him to take advantage of the privacy he'd been gifted with and get the more important parts of his moving in accomplished.

Warding a place wasn't so very difficult.

It was one of the first things that Deaton had taught him after his spark had shown itself, after the fumbled transfer of his mother's to him upon her death.

It had nearly killed him at the time, only nine years old, in a body that was fragile and immature, a mind that was quick and scattered and overcome with grief. By the time he had recovered enough to be released from the hospital himself, the first bad guy had come creeping round and the Sheriff had only been just in time to put a copper-jacketed bullet through its eye socket. He'd scooped Stiles up and delivered him directly to the vet's doorstep that night, only to have the man hand him a bag full of glittering grey dust and tell him that not all monsters existed only in his imagination.

He'd come a long way from playing around with mountain ash, though he still kept the stuff in generous supply. Today he stretched those more advanced muscles by carving sigils around the doors and windows, smudging more drops of blood along the floor boards around the rooms. It didn't feel right, not without his spark packing an extra zing into each symbol, but he fully expected the thing to come back to him as soon as he got his new tattoo, and getting the footwork out of the way now wouldn't hurt anything. They'd light up with the magic as soon as it had replenished itself, and the comfort of having somewhere secure, somewhere safe, a den would only serve to make it stronger.

Still, it was exhausting work and by three that afternoon he needed a break. Something light, something easy, something that would make him feel better about himself and the world, just a little bit.

Scrolling through his phone, he found the name he'd badgered out of Deaton before he'd left Beacon Hills, Sahng Ho-jin, basically his Boston counterpart – though Stiles doubted this guy was a vet too. Trilling his fingers along the side of the phone, he bit down on his nervousness and tapped the call button, suddenly feeling like he was in for a job interview. The phone rang twice before a man picked up, answered in sharp, staccato Korean.

"Um, hi, hello sir?" He stammered, unprepared for the sheer anger radiating down the line. "I'm looking for Sahng Ho-jin? Alan Deaton gave me this number?"

Oh good, now he was shouting.

Had Deaton warned this guy he'd be calling?

Oh god, he should've thought this out – everyone hated Deaton. He was going to get fucking hate-mail, maybe even a druid curse...

"This is Stiles Stilinski, Ulryk Stilinski's nephew?" He tried again, pushing over the voice on the other end. Yeah, his dad had taken his mom's name, so what? "Alan said you might be willing to..."

Click.

Right.

Well fuck you very much then.

What was he going to do now?

Sure, he was pretty far along in knowing how to handle his spark, knowing how to deal with the nasties that went bump in the night, but he still needed a mentor, someone to go to with questions or freakouts or bodies that needed disposing, and even more than that he needed someone to show him around this god-forsaken city, all rain and grey and filth. It was insane how hard it was to find a toe-hold in any supernatural community – he shuddered to think how long it would take him to pry his way into this one, to even find it. He needed hook-ups, connections, buyers and dealers, needed to know who responded to threats and who responded to bribes. He...

Jesus.

He was gung-ho to jump right back in wasn't he?

Just yesterday he was debating what kind of life he wanted to live, if he wanted to start over here and try for a normal life without all the other... other.

Now here he was, pissed because it would take him a little time to find the post-office, to do a little investigating to figure out which bum on the corner would buy his alcohol in exchange for a twenty and which would turn him in, to figure out which deputy could be bought or frightened into keeping his mouth shut when Stiles made a little too much noise.

Pfft.

He was Stiles Stilinski, son of John and Claudia Stilinski.

He knew how get shit done.

Ok then, first things first.

He might not have the kind of connections here that he had in Beacon Hills, but he still had his online community, his etsy store. That was more than enough to keep him grounded, give him the emergency help he needed most, and put a little spending money in his pocket. They might even be able to direct him to some more local, in-person type contacts.

Opening up his laptop, he logged into the wifi and updated his location on all of his most frequently visited sites, asked for recommendations for a good tattoo shop in the Boston area (and flagging Chuy, his old artist in the post), and apologized for any possible backlog that might occur in the next week or two while he got settled. Checking the location of the nearest post office, he grabbed his wallet turned to leave, getting stuck to the floor before he made it past his bedroom door.

Why was this so hard?

He'd lived a life without his spark before – had it made him so much of a coward that he wouldn't step out the door without it?

Whatever.

He was traumatized, ok? Grieving.

Leave the lowly orphan to his meager coping mechanisms.

Crossing to the closet, he dug to the back where he found the leather jacket his father had given him last Christmas, the last gift they would ever trade between them. It was a deep, dark red, hooded, with buckles and zippers galore, and they'd both laughed about how cliched it was, knowing the whole time that it was perfect. Stiles had fashioned himself a Red Riding Hood, a hunter of monsters, a monster in his own right, and with the nemeton active in Beacon Hills there had been more than enough bad guys to go around. He'd learned how to fight them and then how to kill them, and then he'd had a reputation so solid that he'd only had to threaten them with his name.

Slipping it on felt like slipping into armor, one of his dad's old Kevlar vests, too big and too heavy for a kid, but... comforting.

With his pocket knife, a lighter, and a tiny charm tucked into his pockets, he felt a little better.

A little more prepared.

He wasn't.

Dropping down the stairs, he decided to play the good nephew and swing through the gym to let Ulryk know that he'd be stepping out for a bit, but as he exited the hallway and rounded his uncle's office, stepped into the gym proper, his heart nearly stopped in his chest.

Wolves.

A bloody fucking packful of wolves.


	4. Chapter 4

He must've made a sound.

Some sort of small, wounded sound, a prey sound, and he could've kicked himself for it because that was the kind of thing that got you dead, that caught the attention of every damned wolf in the area, ears perking up, eyes narrowing, mouths falling open to show sharp, white, killing teeth...

He could see the animals behind their eyes, the pelts beneath their skin like double-exposed, nine millimeter film, red and gold and blue and he could see them lifting their heads to scent the air and he nearly choked on his own fear. His heart was pounding in his throat, his chest tight, and he struggled for breath, feet stuck to the floor even as the panic drove him to retreat, to run, to get to high ground. He couldn't see their faces, couldn't see beyond the moonlight splash of teeth and claws and dark, dark shadow, the tattoo beneath his shirt flaring hot and cold so fast he went dizzy with it.

Gasping, he clutched at his side where it wrapped around his ribcage; a twisted, gnarled tree, the whole of the nemeton he'd burned to the ground back in Beacon Hills, a wolf rising up from its roots, climbing the branches to howl at a full, fat moon. The thing burned and stung, tingling electricity racing along lines of magic and black ink and it had never done that before...

Stiles felt his feet move. backing away in slow, steady, silent retreat, eyes still on him and everything still, no one moving, all poised to pounce, and then he heard his uncle's voice above the harsh, grating rasp of his own breathing and it was far too close, too close for comfort, too close fore safety as the man loomed large and living and warm beside him.

"Genim. Genim! Breathe dziecko, you're..."

Stiles felt a snarl rumble up out of his chest, a vicious, feral sound that broke between his own bared teeth like an angry warning, and then with one sharp, twisting movement he ducked his uncle's proffered hold, jerked away from his outstretched hand and darted back up the hallway, slipping into the man's office and slamming the door behind him. Automatically he scanned the room, noted the exits and the advantages, then turned the lock on the door and, when he found the blinds drawn, the small space secure, collapsed back against the wall, gasping for breath.

With hooked fingers, Stiles tore off his jacket and began clawing at his shirt, dragged it up to his armpits to stare down at the arcs and swirls of ink that curved around his torso, his nails drawing red furrows over his hip as they raked over his own side. The image burned like it was new, like the needle was still biting into his flesh to leave the black behind, and Stiles bit his lip hard to keep down the long, low whine that stuck in his throat.

Chest heaving, he dropped his shirt, banged his head back against the wall and focused on the sharp burst of pain. Counting his breaths, listening to his own heartbeat and pressing his fingers to the swallow on his forearm, he forced himself to forget the wolf in favor of the bird, plead silently for the comfort and protection of his mother, of his own inner strength.

Slowly the panic began to fade, replaced instead with the warm glow of embarrassment.

He didn't know what his problem was.

Ok, so he hadn't had great experiences with werewolves thus far, but he shouldn't be freaking out like this. Sure, he'd been unprepared, sure, he'd been faced with an entire pack of wolves where he'd only fought single omegas or mated pairs before, but that wasn't exactly a great excuse was it? He was Stiles Stilinski, Little Red – and sure he was only seventeen, but he had a name and a reputation and he was still alive wasn't he? He'd faced down countless monsters, faced very human tragedy, and here he was, still standing.

Fisting his hands in the denim of his jeans, he leaned heavily against his knees, swallowed down the sour sharpness of bile at the back of his throat as he forced himself to stare at rich, red leather of his jacket where he'd tossed it onto the desk. The color grounded him, settled him, and by the time he forced himself upright again he felt steadier, calmer. No one had come after him, and the distracting tingles that had bothered him throughout the day had settled as well, now clearly identifiable as the separate auras of the wolves on the other side of the glass, cluttering up his uncle's gym.

His uncle...

Fuck.

Son of a bitch, he knew, he had to know, but he...

Gripping the edge of the man's desk until his knuckles turned white, Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, counted his breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth.

The emotions that had threatened to overwhelm him only moments ago slowly started to creep back in on him, more controlled, more sharply defined, more understandable outside the jumble of shock and fear that had threatened to choke him.

Part of it was panic, part of it was fear, but part of it was grief and sadness and horrible, horrible want.

In a way he'd lived his whole life for this, meant for running with a wolf pack like a thoroughbred was meant for racing, and suddenly, with that strange, fearful understanding, a part of it, a strong, burning, intense part of it was hate.

Fighting the violent urge to turn over his uncle's desk and pitch everything on top of it against the wall, Stiles crossed around behind it and grabbed hold of the top drawer of the free-standing filing cabinet there. Yanking with all of the considerable strength he'd built up the last few years fighting for his life, metal twisted and squealed as the cheap lock snapped, and then the drawer came crashing open. Nearly wrenched from its tracks, he was left staring down at his own fingers where they had put an actual dent in the steel handle.

That wasn't his spark, but if this furious, hot anger-fear was enough to put a little power back in the palms of his hands he'd take it.

Scanning the long row of files inside the drawer, he reached impulsively for a thick, black binder at the far end, pulled it out and threw it onto his uncle's desk before slamming the cabinet shut and planting his ass in a wobbly, lop-sided desk-chair. The plastic folder tingled and hummed under his fingertips, glowed white at the edges behind his vision as instinct urged him onward, and flipping back the cover revealed a series of files inside neatly labeled with the names of his uncle's fighters, the prospective professionals who made up his competitive kick-boxing and mixed martial arts teams.

For Stiles it was like getting kicked in the gut, punched in the teeth.

Every single one of those names, ever picture in the file belonged to a werewolf.

Scott McCall.

Jackson Whittemore.

Vernon and Erica Reyes-Boyd.

Isaac Lahey.

Derek and Cora Hale.

Hale...

Wait a minute, he knew that name.

The Hale pack used to be a power-player, well-established, well-respected in the supernatural community, until an Argent hunter had gone nuts a few years ago and broken every rule and codicil the family had, burning the Hale house to the ground and taking nearly every member of the family with it.

This couldn't be the same family, the same Hales...

His uncle wouldn't...

Ho-ly shit.

"You knew."

It came out like a choked, strangled whisper, automatic, dumbfounded, unstoppable when the door of the office creaked open and his uncle stepped inside. His mind was spinning, blanking, but instead of tumbling back into the panic that had threatened to overwhelm him only moments ago, the anger came sweeping back in, cold and calm and deadly. Spreading his hand wide over the folder, he pressed his fingertips hard to the paper, felt heat that left small, golden-brown singe marks when he lifted his hand away.

Pushing to his feet, he balled up his fists, fell naturally into the boxing stance his uncle had taught him such a long time ago but the man didn't react, didn't instinctively move into counter-position. That must have been hard for him, intentional, but it didn't do anything to bank the fury-fire building in Stiles' gut.

"You knew," he snarled, showing his teeth. "You knew what she was, what would happen."

The man's brows drew together in a frown and he shook his head.

"I didn't know," he said sadly. "The spark, our spark, this should have... this should have died with her."

"It was killing her," Stiles hissed, eyes burning with sudden tears as the anger abruptly gave way to pain, to gut-wrenching sadness and no small amount of guilt. "It was killing her and you didn't even come. You never came, you never even called! She asked for you..."

"I could not come dziecko," Ulryk interrupted, and Stiles could hear the pain in his voice now, the tightness in his throat but he couldn't believe it. "I could not come. She knew this. Had I come, the spark, it would try to come to me, yeah? This would have hurt her, hurt her chances..."

"She never had a damned chance," Stiles spat. "She knew it would kill her one day and so did I. So what, you didn't come because you were scared her spark would jump to you and you left me to catch it? I was just a kid, I'm still just a kid, and it's almost killed me a hundred times!"

"This I did not know could happen," Ulryk admitted, taking a step forward and reaching out a hand to his nephew's shoulder. "Genim..."

"And what about after?" Stiles demanded, ducking away. "What about after, when she was gone and I woke up in the hospital and everything went to hell, what was your excuse then?"

"I did this to protect you," Ulryk insisted, and even though he could hear the truth of it, see it in his uncle's face, Stiles still couldn't feel it in his own heart, all the years of repressed anger and resentment and hurt boiling up into the urge to scream, to kick and bite and howl. "Is no excuse, but the spark is Stilinski's – I would have taken it from your matka and I was afraid I take it from you."

Well fuck.

Fine.

Legitimate.

Whatever.

Didn't make anything better, didn't make him hate his uncle any less right now in this moment, but he knew enough of the truth, had heard a reason good enough that just a little bit of his ire cooled.

Not all of it though.

"And what about now?" he asked, cold and quiet and without any of the desperate ache of before. "What about the Hales?"

Ulryk froze, then narrowed his eyes and straightened his shoulders.

"What about these Hales?"

"You know what they are. What I am."

"And what would I do?" Ulryk demanded. "Take you from your father, bring you here? Your matka did not want this for you dziecko."

And well...

That was it.

That right there was Stiles' limit.

Slamming the folder shut, he threw it back into the filing cabinet and shoved past his uncle with all the intention of sending the older man to the ground, if he were only a little less stocky and unbalanced. Bursting out of the office he stalked up the short bit of hallway, back out into the gym proper where the wolves all waited, studiously pretending they hadn't heard the entirety of the shouting match he and his uncle had just had. He was only a few strides from the door when his uncle caught him by the elbow, tugged him to a halt, and it took all Stiles had not to turn around and swing.

"Genim, you..."

"Don't... call me that," he growled, in a tone deeper and more gravelly than he'd ever heard himself use before. There was death in that tone, promised pain, and his uncle let him go like he'd caught fire, taking a step back as his tanned, weather-beaten face paled.

"Genim is good name," he argued, "Strong name. Your matka gave you that name, mine siostra."

"Yeah, my mother," he sneered, and all around him the panes of glass in the windows of the gym began to rattle. "My mother, who's dead and who was the only one who ever called me that."

Pressure swelled in his chest, pushing against his rib cage and he could feel the wolves' eyes on him, feel their hot breath panting down the back of his neck as energy crackled along his spine and the ropes and chains on the equipment around them began to vibrate.

"That is not my name."

The world could've exploded then.

He could feel it, the strange, dark reflection of his spark inside him, clattering around like a steel pinball trying to break out, and if he'd let it happen he was sure he could've combusted. Pain, sadness, agonizing guilt, anger and hate and everything he'd ever wanted to change all snowballed on him at once, and as the wolf pack watched in an awed, uncomfortable sort of silence Stiles fought himself, fought his reactions and his uncertainty and his fear, all held by one thin, tenuous thread of control.

The chime over the door snapped him out of it.

Talk about saved by the bell – actually seemed kind of appropriate in the moment.

A swell of magic swept through the gym like a spring breeze, cool and damp and clean, and Stiles' shoulders immeditaely dropped as he instinctively breathed deep, turned toward to source of that soothing presence in the doorway.

A young man stood there, Korean, not a year or two older or younger than Stiles himself, and dressed in black from head to toe – gleaming leather shoes with pointed toes, black skinny jeans just like Stiles' own, and a black t-shirt under a leather jacket. He wore silver rings, a lot of them, and a long chain of silver spikes around his neck, and his dark hair was styled to a fade on either side, long and fluffy on top and dyed a deep purple.

After the dressing down he'd gotten on the phone Stiles wasn't sure what he'd been expected, but it wasn't this.

"I'm looking for Stiles?" he asked in crisp, clean English, doing no more to acknowledge the painful tension in the room than to cock an eyebrow.

"Sahng Ho-jin?" he asked, jerking away from his uncle and stepping toward the door.

The guy snorted.

"Yeah no," he replied, sticking out a hand for Stiles to shake. "Was my old man you called. Sangh Dae-hyun, but you can call me Bishop."

"Stiles," he offered in return, and their handshake was firm and gripping and oh-so-sweet. He hadn't gotten a good vibe off a druid in a long time.

Fucking Deaton.

"You got anywhere to be?" Stiles asked, suddenly desperate to get out, get away from his uncle and the wolves who watched him like prey.

"Just here man," he answered with a shrug, and Stiles grinned, all sharp, feral teeth, but the guy didn't flinch, didn't cower at all even as Stiles felt that dark, shadow spark flicker and surge, reach out for the guy's aura to touch, taste.

Reigning back the impulse, because hey, rude, he slung his arm companionably around the guy's shoulders and spun him to face the door, marched them toward it without a backward glance.

"Great. Then you can show me where to get some good weeds."

* * *

 **Happy Birthday to me! Well mostly. Technically yesterday. Tacos and tequila and friends to stave off the quarterlife crisis. Be back in the am with Hungry Like the Wolf (:**


	5. Chapter 5

He ended up dragging Stiles three blocks across town and didn't say a word the entire time. He just let Stiles ramble, babble about utter nonsense and hang off his shoulders as he strode confidently down the sidewalk, hands shoved in his pockets and head high. They wound up in a shitty little warehouse district, where the guy walked up to a box van painted all black with green and orange pinstriping and banged his fist against the metal side, making it echo like the thin, hollow steel of a drum. It looked like a drug dealer's van, so when he held up a fistful of cash to the opened side panel and came back instead with two soft, warm flatbread wraps stuffed with fragrant bahn mi, Stiles was a little more than surprised.

Accepting the sandwich, he followed the young man over to the curb where they leaned back against a garage door, their sneakers in the gutter and the low, dull thump of hip hop music coming from somewhere far away. The pork is fragrant and the pickled vegetables are crunchy and sour-tart, and after one forced, less-than-enthusiastic bite, Stiles found himself ravenous, actually hungry for the first time in what felt like a long time. A part of it was coming down off the adrenaline, the anger, but a part of it was the guy sitting next to him, Bishop, the low-level thrum of druid magic in his aura that was cool and soothing, like aloe on a sunburn.

Silently they finished their wraps, licking vinegar from their fingers and letting Stiles' jittery buzz of anxiety drain away, until his knee finally stopped bouncing and the guy took it as permission to speak.

"Not sure if I should ask," he began, wiping his hands on his jeans and shoving to his feet, "And I'm really not sure I want to know... but uh, what the hell was that?"

"Long story," Stiles grumbled, forcing himself up and off the sidewalk too. "Just got here from California..."

"Stiles Stilinski right? Beacon Hills? You worked with Deaton, shut down a nemeton out there?"

Stiles paused, looked the guy up and down with a grimace, because that was more information than he'd expected Deaton to share. Seemed more like an effort to warn other druids away from Stiles than to help him.

"Yeah. Anyway. I'm a born and blooded Spark but I've never had the chance to meet a real wolf pack right? Never had one like I'm supposed to. Move out here with my uncle and surprise, surprise, the guy's got one ready-made right here in Boston. And the dick never said a word."

"Ouch."

"Yeah."

It was quiet for a few minutes and Stiles realized they were moving again, trailing slowly along the sidewalks, crisscrossing through traffic and walking against the lights. Bishop seemed to be mulling over what he'd said, assessing how he should respond until Stiles took a little mercy on him and forced himself to open his mouth.

"I mean, I get it ok? I get why he did what he did, but shit. I mean he could've..."

Growling, he scrubbed his hands through his hair, threw them up and kept walking.

"I don't hate him," he insisted, defensive in the face of continued silence. "Even if I... maybe thought I did. Or... felt like I did."

More silence.

"Fine," he snapped, stuffing his hands in his pockets and scowling, looking away. "I'll apologize, jesus."

Beside him Bishop laughed.

"You need a druid, Stiles Stilinski," he said, letting their shoulders bump as he turned them round a corner into a nicer part of town, where small shops started to line the street.

"Yeah. But it seemed like your dad wasn't interested. I mean, if he changed his mind..."

"He didn't, believe me," Bishop scowled, and Stiles felt the guy's aura flare, an icy blast of temper and something stranger, odder, a little too floral and sweeter than he was expecting.

"Wait, you're..."

"A chick, yeah," he sniffed, his jaw set hard and his shoulders suddenly high and tight. They'd trailed to a stop and he kicked the toe of his boot against the sidewalk, scuffed the shiny leather. "Knew by the time I was eight that I was really a dude. But my father is... well, you heard him on the phone. Big time traditional, wouldn't listen, wouldn't accept it. Then I turned fourteen and started to manifest..."

"And druid magic always follow the Y," Stiles finished.

A smug, wicked sort of smirk curled over Bishop's mouth and Stiles' caught a flicker of pride in his eyes.

"I'm not recognized by any Grove," he admitted. "Not even fully trained. But the old man's still pissed about the whole thing, won't get me an apprenticeship..."

Looking away, he shrugged, started walking again.

"He's pretty pissed that Deaton gave you his name. I wouldn't hold my breath that he'll come around. But I figured if you want... I mean, if you need somebody..."

Stiles felt a laugh bubble up in his throat and then hurried to correct the impression, lest he look like any more of a dick than he already did.

"Absolutely man," he nodded. "Hell you saw me back there – I'm a hot mess. You're hired!"

"Really?" Bishop asked, and it was a little loud, a little surprised, a little vulnerable. "Even though I'm..."

Awkwardly, he made a vague gesture in the vicinity of his chest, and Stiles could only assume that he was wearing a binder under his shirt.

"I mean you've pretty much already seen me at my worst," Stiles shrugged. "So I don't have to pretend to be anything more than the joke I actually am. You're a native, so you can show me around until I get my bearings, point me toward all the best sources for all the crap I'm gonna need. Hell, you even fed me. You're miles ahead of Deaton, and I've known you for what, like, half an hour?"

Beside him, Bishop managed a light chuckle.

"As long as you're willing to put up with me I'll take all the help I can get," he professed. "Gotta warn you though – sometimes it's gonna be like babysitting. I'm like a four-year-old after a fight; just want my sippy cup and a cuddle."

He got a full-fledged laugh this time, and both their shoulders dropped a little, the tension just a little less prominent.

"It's the Spark thing," Bishop said with a grin, and Stiles got the distinct impression that he was showing off now, trying to prove his knowledge. "Normally you'd go back to the den, to your pack, reaffirm the bonds. You're substituting."

"Dude, you don't gotta apply for the job," Stiles laughed. "Not like I've got people lining up. You want it you've got it. I can even pay you a little."

"You don't have to do that."

"You'd be earning it, believe me," he scoffed. "I sell some shit, low-level spells, small charms... It's mostly online, but if you can get me supplies and find me a local clientele I'll split the profits with you."

"Hey, so long as it's not illegal, I'm down."

Pausing on the sidewalk, the guy seemed to twist and shimmer in place for a minute, bottled energy making him quiver like a tuning fork.

"This is so cool," he said finally, his grin wide and white and sharp. "Never thought I'd actually get a chance to apprentice. Or even just work for anybody. And I mean, you're Stiles Stilinski. I've actually heard of you. You've got a serious name in the Groves, did you know that?"

"All good things, I'm sure," Stiles snorted, rolling his eyes.

"Well I mean... no. Not... not really."

It was enough to make Stiles burst into laughter, and after a second's shocked pause Bishop joined in, until they were both gasping for breath and clutching at each other's shoulders and the whole of the afternoon seemed a little more ridiculous than painfully emotional. Stiles could feel Bishop's curiosity, the desire to reach out and tap along the edges of his Spark but he pulled back, brushed off the apology before it could be said.

"If you're sure, we'll do a one year binding ceremony this week," he said. That would offer them both the opportunity to get a thorough, comprehensive feel for the other, become familiar with their magic and all their senses, and even though it was soon, even though he'd known this guy for less than an hour, there was no apprehension, no sense of moving too fast. It hadn't felt like this with Deaton, and that was reassuring in itself. "But let's hold off until then. I'm a little off my footing, and I'd rather get it back first."

"No worries," Bishop said lightly. "Wolves throw you off?"

"That's putting it lightly," he scoffed. "But no, it's just..."

Frowning, he decided to tell it the easy way, rolled up the sleeve of his jacket to show off his mother's tattoo, the little swallow inked onto forearm.

"My mom," he said, touching it lightly with his fingertips, and a little trill of warmth ran through him, of comfort. "And my... my dad."

His throat tightened up as the touched the opposite arm, his bare skin and he could feel in the imbalance of it. Clearing his throat, he uncuffed his sleeves, rolled his shoulders.

"Anyway," he said hoarsely, "I'm looking for a good tattoo artist if you know anybody."

"Yeah," Bishop nodded, and then he was rolling up his own sleeve, baring his left forearm for Stiles' inspection. "Midnight Ink, on third. Bit of a hike, but totally worth it."

"Nice work," Stiles admitted, examining the Alchemic symbols marked on Bishop's skin. There were three of them, each the size of a fat silver dollar and done in a deep, navy colored ink; the bisected circle that stood for salt, the upside down triangle for the water element, and the 2-shaped cross that stood for Jupiter and its metal, tin. There was enough low-level magic running through them that he could just feel it if he focused, the symbols acting as channels for Bishop's Druid nature much as Stiles' own did for his Spark.

"Blake's good," he said, rolling his sleeve back down. "Mid-level mage, tested in the elementals. What's your planet, by the way? If you don't mind me asking."

"Changes," Stiles shrugged. "Used to be Mars, iron. When my mom died and I caught her Spark, it jumped to Venus. Copper's better, more universal, but Venus is..."

"Volatile," Bishop concluded. "Unstable."

"Yeah."

"I'll give you his number. Should be able to get you in sometime this week - he's good about last minute appointments. Helps that he doesn't ink civilians. Anyway – you said you needed weeds?"

Jerking his chin, Bishop made an expansive gesture and Stiles turned, found himself on the steps of a large garden store, the outdoor patio tarped and covered against the recent thunderstorm. As his newly acquired druid guided him through the doors, Stiles breathed deep, identified the scent of mint and pine, lemon verbena and cilantro, aloe and rose and creosote. Shelves were lined with decorative ceramic and terracotta plant pots, small gardening tools, bottles of weed-eater and waist-high piles of plastics bags, stretched and heavy with soil.

It was a gardening store, just a gardening store, and that was calming too, like Bishop was.

Cooling and quiet, like... like lying at the bottom of a swimming pool, looking up through the water.

Striding confidently down the aisles, Bishop led him to what looked like a small cleaning closet, marched past the sign that read Employees Only, drew back a curtain, and threw Stiles a wicked, saucy wink over his shoulder.


	6. Chapter 6

It looks like a gardening store.

It is, of course it is.

It's just... more too.

A lot more.

Kinda like Stiles actually, and Bishop too.

Human, but... more.

Following Bishop through the curtain and down a short flight of stairs, Stiles had found himself in a small basement room, very much like a library. It was packed with shelves, the shelves packed with stuff: charms and books and ingredients and every little thing you could imagine, and at the very back behind a counter is a wrinkled old witch who looks to be about a hundred-and-four, even though she's got blue streaks in her hair and approximately a dozen rings between her left ear, her nose, and her eyebrow.

Stiles flashes her the rock-on symbol and she flashes him one right back.

Seriously though, he's pretty sure he could stay down there forever. The sensation of being underwater only grows the longer they stay, everything dim and still and cool, and he feels like he can breathe freely again for the first time in a really long time.

He buys purple quartz and white chalk, and a pair of leather gloves that will only be used for working with his plants. Earth too, a sack full of thick, black soil that came from Europe and smells like rain in a cemetery, fresh and clean. There's a tiny, bespelled globe full of light on one of the shelves that mimics the moon's natural orbit, and it runs a little more expensive than his pockets are deep, but he can't resist so he forgoes the plant pots and buys that instead. The witch looks at him like she knows everything about him as she rings him up, and hands him a coupon for fifteen percent off his next visit.

He convinces Bishop to walk him past a Salvation Army on the way back. There's a chipped ceramic tea set going for four bucks, and between eight cups, the creamer pitcher, and the pot, there's plenty of room to get his seedlings started growing. They chatter excitedly between themselves, making plans to sneak out for their binding ceremony the following Friday, and after a quick phone call Bishop promises to take him to the tattoo parlor before the week is out.

It's calm and it's settling to speak with the druid, but also just to talk to a friend, and by the time they get back to the gym Stiles maybe hates his life just a little bit less than he did before.

"Want me to come in with you?" Bishop asks, and Stiles shakes his head, already knowing he'll regret it.

"Nah man, I'm good," he replies, hoisting the bag of dirt he's got balanced on his hip like a small child. "I'm just gonna get all this stuff set up. Text me tomorrow though, we can talk some more about how we wanna do this."

"Sweet," Bishop grins, offering Stiles a fist bump. "Later dude."

"See ya."

Watching the young druid wander off up the sidewalk, Stiles feels his stomach swoop as his soothing magic fades, nausea settling into the pit of his stomach. It's stupid – he can't keep the guy with him forever, that's way too codependent – and besides he needs to get a handle on his shit anyway.

Steeling himself, he drops his shoulders and takes a deep breath, pushes inside with his head held high and his focus narrowed.

He doesn't want to look at them.

Doesn't want to see them.

It's bad enough that the nauseating want has to nearly knock him to his knees as the presence of werewolf, of pack comes crashing down on him like a wave.

His step doesn't stutter, his breathing doesn't falter, and yet he can feel them staring, can feel the confusion and the curiosity and the interest bubbling up beneath his skin till it's like to blister.

He hears his uncle call his name from where he's standing behind the counter but he ignores him, carrying his stuff straight back toward the hallway that leads upstairs to the apartment. He doesn't know why he didn't take the stairs outside, why he didn't avoid all this completely, and something small and dark and sickly in the back of his mind says that maybe he does want this, want them.

That thought is abruptly shot to pieces when he very nearly bounces off a well-muscled chest, the scent of a grave filling up his chest and threatening to choke him, all clogging rot and decay.

Stiles takes a sharp step back, moving instinctively, and he doesn't know quite how it happens but the next thing he does know his hands are empty and held low at his sides, palms tingling like they're full of pins and needles. A werewolf stands directly in front of him, older, handsome, in a slick sort of way, and all kinds of dangerous. He feels his lip rise off his teeth – there's something not right about this man – his heart beats but feels dead in his chest, thin, creeping scars winding up his neck from beneath the v-neck collar of his shirt, blackbluegreen poison seeping through his veins, and...

"Well hello Little Red," the werewolf purrs, his eyes flashing a bright, electric blue, as a slow, wicked smile curves across his mouth, white teeth sharp. "You must be Stiles."

Stiles' heart thumps in his chest and he narrows his eyes, reminds himself of exactly who he is.

"Must I?" he asks sweetly, and the werewolf's grin broadens.

"Your reputation precedes you gorgeous," he replies, and this time it's Stiles' turn to smirk, cold and deadly.

"Apparently not far enough," he answers back. "Piss off Lazarus."

The man looks him over, slow and calculating, and Stiles just waits with his chin held high, even if his knees feel like knocking. He's got nothing, nothing on him or in him or with him right now to help him in a fight, not really, not against a full grown werewolf, not one like this, and he...

But the guys just grinning at him, sexy and dangerous and infuriating, and stepping out of his way like he's allowing Stiles through.

'Fuck you,' he thinks, because whose gym is it anyway? He clearly knows Ulryk, clearly knows the pack that is standing around staring, cluttering up the place, and anyway, what's he going to do? Attack Stiles right there in the open where everyone can see?

Yeah, so he apparently knows who Stiles is - so what?

The rest of them don't necessarily know, and even if they'd heard his little freak-out in his uncle's office that morning (they'd definitely heard), he hadn't exactly spelled anything out.

For all they knew, he was just some weird human who had no idea werewolves were anything more than Hollywood monsters, and for all he knew, there were human civilians in the gym mixed in with them.

Couldn't exactly have a knock-down, drag-out right there on the gym floor could they?

Besides, the whole front wall of the gym is glass, windows between them and anyone passing by on the sidewalk.

Stiles picks his shit up off the floor and walks past the werewolf with his most condescending smirk pasted to his face, forcing himself not to run, to ignore the gaze burning between his shoulder blades until he is upstairs and out of sight with the apartment door locked between them.

Then, and only then, does he allow himself to slide shakily to the floor, to shudder through the watered-down panic attack threatening to consume him.

It's not fair.

It's not fair that he has to know what's out there, that he has to recognize the monsters that go bump in the night without having some compensation, some way to defend himself. He needs his spark back, needs something more than the useless prickling in his palms that comes when he feels threatened, and he had felt threatened.

Not only by that guy – jeezus, his eyes were blue - but by the pack as a whole, all of them there together, waiting...

Swallowing hard, Stiles pushes himself to his feet, gathers his things and carries them into his bedroom.

He's got it the way he wants it now. There's something to be said for coming into a space that's all your own, that's just right. It's calming, settling, and he absolutely does not compare it to returning to his den, because he's had enough of werewolves for one day thank you very much. Opening his laptop, he puts on a classic rock playlist that the plants like and goes to the bathroom to wash his hands, scrubbing all the way up to his elbows. Successfully avoiding the mirror, he heads back to his room, sits down at his desk, and begins.

The plants are one thing he's always loved about this whole mess he's found himself in. When he'd first started learning about what he was, first started going through his mother's things, he hadn't expected to fall in love with botany. There's something so clean about earth magic though, something so magical in the simplicity of plants that he can't help but lose himself in them. As he works filling up the tea set with soil in the afternoon sunlight, he listens hard for the familiar whispers that all plants make, the little songs they like to hum. Without his spark he cannot understand them, but he thinks he can hear the melody all the same.

Wolfsbane goes into one cup.

Mistletoe in another.

The teapot holds mint, the regular kind, because even normal plants have their uses.

That's what he loves most about them, he muses – they can be so many different things.

Food, poison, medicine, bait, a weapon or just plain old pretty – plants always managed to serve a purpose.

As he works his mind keeps itself busy, chewing at problems he doesn't even realize he's mulling over until he comes to a few conclusions. Tonight, he'll go downstairs to his uncle's office and have another look through his files, read up on these wolves that hang around his gym like flies in the summer heat, learn them and learn their faces. He won't be caught off guard again, will be able to hold his own whether his spark comes to him or not, because he doesn't think he can handle being this weak the rest of his life. Best to be prepared for the worst then, if getting his new tattoo this week doesn't balance things out.

He'll have to make up with his uncle. Apologize, maybe – the guy is nice enough that that should be more than sufficient, and then he can 'shadow' him around the gym to learn the place and the routine while really he'll be studying the layout, learning the exits and the tight corners. Ulryk will think he's coming around, or that he feels bad about their fight and is trying to make up for it – one problem solved - and Stiles will have the chance to watch the wolves, to watch the way they move and learn their hierarchy and study their weaknesses.

Yeah, he feels better with a plan.

Finishing up his pots, he places the tea seat in the window where the little seedlings will hopefully catch plenty of sun and hangs the orb full of moonlight above them by a piece of black ribbon. Such a small thing, it should be simple enough to charm it with an easy levitating spell, powered by its own magic to keep it afloat, but he doesn't even have to flick his fingers to know the power just isn't there.

"Wingardium Leviosa," he mutters, flicking it halfheartedly so that it taps against the glass, but of course nothing happens.

Harry Potter's cool and all, but it's not real.

Real magic takes a lot more than just a wand and some words.

Real magic hurts, takes blood and sweat and pain and energy, and an iron will that won't break.

Rubbing his fingers over the swallow tattoo on his forearm, Stiles sighs and grabs a sheet of blank paper, summons up all the good memories he has of his father and starts sketching one for the other side.

If those sketches end up smeared and spotted with tears in some places, his plants aren't talking.


End file.
